Access to safe, affordable water and essential utility services should not depend on your zip code, your income, or the neighborhood you live in. Yet for millions of American households, unaffordable bills, inequitable service, and a lack of meaningful accountability are daily realities.

Recode is developing the Community-based Utility Rating System, a first-of-its-kind, community-centered certification program that evaluates water and wastewater utilities on affordability, equity, transparency, and resilience. Unlike traditional regulatory oversight, this program puts communities at the center of the process. Trained community members evaluate their own utilities annually, producing public scorecards that hold utilities accountable to the people they serve.

Utilities that meet community-defined standards earn a certified rating they can demonstrate to regulators, funders, and the public. Those that fall short have a clear, supported pathway to improve. The result is an accountability infrastructure that works regardless of political conditions, one that turns utility equity from an aspiration into a measurable, verifiable standard.